Mark 1:29-39
I think today’s gospel shows the level of expectation placed on Jesus from the very beginning, by people (just like us, incidentally) who had made assumptions about who Jesus was and the way he went about his Father’s business.
These expectations are not in themselves bad, but an indication of just how easy it is to try and ‘domesticate’ or ‘organise’ Jesus.
But let’s put today’s passage in context. Everything seems to happen quickly in Mark’s gospel. We are only in chap.1 at the 29th verse and already: we have met John the Baptist (vv.4-8), Jesus has been baptised and tempted in the wilderness (vv. 9-11, 12-13), he has begun his public ministry and chosen four of his disciples (vv.14-20), and delivered a man from an unclean spirit (vv.23-27). It’s exhausting just reading it!
Today, Jesus and the four disciples have just got back from the synagogue to the house of Simon’s mother-in-law. Let’s now look into what happens in his mother-in-law’s house and just after in terms of what people expected Jesus to do.
The Gospel writers were careful about which healing stories they included in their accounts of Jesus’ life, and they chose certain stories to teach us specific things about Jesus. (The apostle John writes that if everything Jesus did was written down, “even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn 21:25 NKJ).
Now Mark sat at the feet of the apostle Peter in the same way that Timothy sat at the feet of Paul. So Mark’s gospel is imbued with Simon Peter’s teachings to Mark, so a healing in Peter’s family would have been a perfect teaching opportunity. But let’s look closer.
In the first two verses we twice come across this word ‘immediately’: v. 29: “And immediately they left the synagogue…” v. 30: “And immediately they told him about her…” What is going on here? Mark is trying to stress the fact that there is urgency on the part of the followers of Jesus. Why might they be in such a hurry?
Well, they have been with him in the synagogue, and they have just watched Jesus for the first time heal someone. Simon’s mind might have been inking, ‘Here is a healer – a miracle man!
I know – my mother-in-law is sick: let’s get him to heal her too!” So, his followers rush him out of the synagogue and want to utilise his gifts for their own ends, perhaps a little bit like a genie in the lamp: there to grant wishes.
And then, in v. 32, the problem becomes exacerbated, ‘That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.’ Clearly word was spreading about this new miracle worker in their midst and now, everyone wanted a piece of it. As Mark says in v. 33, “The whole city gathered at the door.”
Jesus had healed the man in the synagogue and so first the disciples, then the whole town, begin to define who Jesus is; he is a miracle worker. Jesus begins to be put in a box by those who see him in action; he is put into the box of their choice, and they begin to relate to him in a particular way that best meets their own specific needs.
We too do this from time to time when we stray from focussing on the person of Jesus from whom and to whom and through whom all blessings flow, and focus instead on ourselves.
This is a quite a way from how Jesus had introduced himself to the disciples themselves only a few days before, with nothing less than the Kingdom of God itself. ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’, i.e., in the person of myself.
Within days, Jesus has become boxed in as a miracle worker who can meet their every need and that is how the people of Galilee begin to relate to him. Nevertheless, Jesus’ compassion transcends the misunderstanding of the people and we read in v. 34 that he “healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons.”
The next few verses are key to the whole passage. “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed” (v.35). The picture is of Jesus alone with his Father, a moment of deep intimacy and reconnection.
But look what happens, v.36; “And Simon and his companions hunted for him.” They hunted him, not just looked for him. Peter won’t leave him alone and says to him, ‘everyone is searching for you’.
The people want their miracle worker back. The text itself encourages us to view the disciples this way because they are not yet even called disciples. Mark simply describes them as Jesus and his companions. They were yet to follow Jesus in humble obedience, but rather treating Jesus as the genie in the lamp.
But Jesus only ever does the work of his Father, so he was having none of it. Jesus simply says in v.38, ‘‘’Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’”
Jesus wants to proclaim the kingdom of God, they want him to perform miracles.
Now, notice he says, ‘that is what I came out to do.’ Not ‘that is what I have come to do.’ But ‘have come out to do’. The distinction is not small or trivial, it changes the meaning of the text. If we translate it, “That is why I have come”, we can read this as a statement by Jesus about his ministry and vocation in its totality.
But the grammar used here means there is a less general and far more specific meaning, that Jesus is explaining why he has come out of Capernaum, which is to escape people’s wrong expectations of him.
Jesus will consistently remove from us false conceptions or expectations of him and replace them with the sheer truth of himself by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So how do we apply this way of looking at things to our parish in Drayton? Just as the early disciples had to take Jesus from the box they assigned to him, what would happen if we took Drayton parish out of the box?
If we came out of that box in the same way that Jesus came out of Capernaum and left our preconceptions behind and, like Jesus, decided only to proclaim the kingdom of God, which incidentally will include the dramatic of which we are so fond?
So how do we come out and do this? We do this by being true disciples of Jesus, not just companions of an itinerant healer. We love Jesus loyally and follow him by picking up our cross each day, that is, dying to the selfish desires of our preconceptions.
This is what allows us to love each other. We are baptised resurrection and Pentecost people who become one with Christ in the same way Jesus is one with the Father, and one with each other in exactly the same way!
We can then fully love and be immersed into our community. When these three things; loving Jesus, loving each other, and loving our community, are our focus, all our previous expectations will appear to be nothing but vapour. The church will be blessed in ways we did not at all expect. But it will be profoundly better than our vain desires could ever have even imagined. Let me pray …